Teaching IS Political. Unfortunately.

The great Argentinian writer, Jorge Luis Borges, once responded to a question about politics by famously not answering and asking if the audience wanted to talk about something worthwhile rather than waste their time.

Not everyone likes politics.  Not everyone wants their work, especially if their work is with children, to be caught up in politics or even be seen as having a political dimension.

And, in many ways, I agree with that:  the best things in life are not about politics.

That's why I have wanted this open-source website to be mainly about teaching technique, pedagogy and other tangible issues related directly to the practice of teaching.  

Yet, at this moment in United States history, it seems inescapable; we are living through a fiercely political age.  One in which, no matter how unobjectionable or neutral an individual tries to remain, there are going to be political dimensions foisted upon them.

Case in point:  textbooks.  Check out this New York Times article where the reporter delves into the latest from Texas and how "creationists" are using the Texas textbook process to shape what the rest of the country comes to learn about the theory of evolution. 

While some textbooks are more controversial than others-- history, for example, and recently, biology (of all things!)-- if you really study and understand how California and Texas dominate the textbook market, it does make you realize that, as a teacher, you are at the end of a long political process:  what you teach has been determined elsewhere by big publishers, big politicians, big lobbyists and big money.

That really is disconcerting.

I was at a symposium over the weekend at my alma mater, Carleton College, where I was discussing education, along with a state senator who serves on the education policy committee in the state of Minnesota.

Here, gathered around us, were these wonderful young people who have chosen to pursue teaching; bachelors of liberal arts who have spent four years accumulating the kind of knowledge and skills that make the United States the envy of the world, at least in terms of post-secondary education.

And, yet, if you listened closely to what we were discussing, NCLB, standardized testing, the new state report cards for schools, almost all of it was about the political situation in Minnesota and the nation.  The joys, frustrations, challenges and magic of teaching itself were not on the table, even though, for me, that is what I like to discuss most.

Instead, these young people, these young teachers, heard about how they need to become more active in the political process; that, in fact, if they want to be able to teach children and not just prepare them to take more and more standardized exams, they need to spend time talking to legislators, working with politicians and advocating for certain candidates.

Part of me finds this incredibly trying and sad.  Mostly, as teachers, we just want to do our work and build the kind of curriculum and relationships and collegiality that will lead to success and fulfillment for young people.  But, since that is no longer enough, we and they have to keep an eye out for the political world that is no longer waiting just off school grounds, but which has breached the campus walls and now permeates public education itself.

It's not enough today just to be a great teacher, because in fact, the very ability to continue to teach, with creativity, passion, skill, determination, originality, is literally being called into question by the contemporary political environment.  Realizing that this is where we are and this is what must be done is frustrating. 

Yet, in a lot of ways, between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the world energy squeeze playing out  and the effects of global climate change--there is so much at stake that none of us can be completely immune to what is happening, or what might happen.

Politics is that realm where consequential decisions impact all of us. 

And now the battle has been extended to children.  The future is in question and the system has trained its sights on shaping and controlling it by shaping and controlling the very beings who are the future.

We, as educators, have a tremendous, awesome, unbelievably large responsibility to not just become instruments of control for those already in power.  We have to listen, understand and connect with young people so that they can create the kind of identity, environment and world they believe in for themselves.